


Breathing

by bomberqueen17



Series: Two-Body Problem [14]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Claustrophobia, Competent Keller, Grieving, Hurt/Comfort, John Sheppard Whump, M/M, Post-Sunday, Rodney POV, Rodney is sweet, serious injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:34:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falling rocks and tight quarters lead to unexpected conversations and an unusual recovery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Speak To Me / Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short chapter but the next bit is long and also is being stubborn. I'm actually running into some really confusing logistics, so bear with me. At least this chapter's short, punchy, and has a good emotional payoff; I came up with it literally months ago and have been dying to write it ever since.

“Rodney!” It was Sheppard’s voice, hoarse and gritty. “Rodney! Hey! I’m here! I’m here, I’m right here! How bad is it?”

“I can’t move,” Rodney stopped screaming long enough to pant, “I can’t, I can’t move, it’s, I’m trapped, it’s dark, it’s— I can’t— I can’t—“

“Breathe,” Sheppard said, intense but level. From the sound of him, he wasn’t far away. “Breathe, Rodney. Deep breath. Hold it in. Let it out slowly. Okay? Deep breath in. Hold it. Let it out.”

Rodney obeyed, sucking in a lungful as panic beat at him, holding it, letting it out. “Okay,” he panted. 

“Deep breath in,” Sheppard repeated, “okay, okay now, deep breath out.”

“Okay,” Rodney said, a little more evenly. Breathing in, one two three, breathing out.

“Now,” Sheppard said. “Where are you injured?”

“I, I don’t,” Rodney said, staring up, eyes wide, at total darkness. “I don’t know!”

“Then check,” Sheppard said. “Start with your limbs. Can you wiggle fingers and toes?”

“Yes,” Rodney said, still breathing deep, one two three, breathing out, ten fingers, a bunch of toes inside sweaty boots. 

“Move elbows and knees?”

“Yes,” Rodney said, breathing deep, one two three, breathing out, two elbows, two knees.

“Shoulders and hips?”

“There’s, there’s no room,” Rodney said, panic coming back up as he ran into rock on one side, dirt on the other, no room to move. Breathing deep breathing out breathing deep breathing out. 

“Are you pinned down anywhere in particular, or are you just stuck?” Sheppard asked, as patient as if they were discussing the particulars of routine jumper maintenance and not trying to assess the aftermath of an avalanche.

“Just stuck,” Rodney said. “I’m not, I don’t think I’m hurt, just— oh God! I’m stuck. It’s really close. I can’t—“ Breathing! Breathing! Breathing! 

“Breathe in,” Sheppard said, calm, eternally patient like he was when it mattered, and his voice was like a rope Rodney could climb out of the panic, could hold fast to, “and hold it, and no cheating. Now breathe out, and tell me, are you bleeding anywhere?”

“No,” Rodney said after a long moment of considering it, breathing deep and slow and clinging to Sheppard’s presence, just out of reach, everywhere in the darkness. “I don’t… I don’t think so.” He considered a little longer. “I’m kinda scraped up.”

“Internal injuries?” Sheppard asked. “Does it hurt badly anywhere in particular? Can you breathe all right?”

“No,” Rodney said, “or well, yes,” breathing deeply, forcing calm. “I think I’m all right. Just cuts and scrapes, I can breathe fine.”

“Good,” Sheppard said, and made a little grunting noise. “Good,” he repeated, voice strained. “There.” A little beam of light lanced through Rodney’s space, limning the edges of rocks and showing the gap Sheppard must be speaking through. 

“I can see that!” Rodney exclaimed. “I see where you are!”

“Can you come this way at all?” Sheppard’s voice sounded strained. 

In the light, Rodney could see now where the rocks were, instead of just running into them every time he tried to move and flying into a panic at how tight the space was. “Oh,” he said, “I think so, it’s, it looks like the wall held here, there’s just a chunk between us that has shifted.”

“Your radio working?” Sheppard asked. 

Rodney crawled carefully through the narrow space to get closer to Sheppard’s voice. They’d only been walking a little ways apart when the collapse had started, and it had been his gamble that the wall would hold; he’d grabbed Sheppard and hauled him in, having already assessed the structure before they started walking. Sometimes paranoia paid off. He paused, and hit his radio. “Just static,” he said. 

“Same here,” Sheppard said. Rodney started crawling again, and dislodged a small rock, which shifted and made a much larger rock settle with an ominous thunk. “Whoa!” The flashlight beam moved wildly.

“It’s okay,” Rodney said, freezing solid until the light steadied again. He could see Sheppard’s hand, he thought, but there was a big pile of dirt and rock between them. “I don’t think we’re down very far, if it weren’t night we’d be able to see daylight.”

“Oh,” Sheppard said, “I can see stars from here, that’s why I was asking if you could come this way.”

“Can you dig yourself out?” Rodney asked, moving more carefully until he was closer to Sheppard’s flashlight. 

“No,” Sheppard said, “I don’t think— I might dislodge something if I try.” 

“I don’t think I can come any farther this way,” Rodney said, but he wriggled a little more anyway, and stretched out his hand. “I can— I can almost reach you.”

“Oh, hey,” Sheppard said, and the flashlight moved a little. “You’re right there.” There was a rustle, and something cold grazed Rodney’s hand. Rodney wriggled a little bit more, and reached, and that cold thing was Sheppard’s fingers, freezing cold, even more so than usual. Rodney grabbed desperately, held on. 

“There you are,” Rodney said.

“Hey, Rodney,” Sheppard said, his voice barely more than a breath. It was shockingly intimate. 

“I never thought I’d be so excited just to touch your hand,” Rodney said. 

Sheppard huffed a quiet little almost-laugh. “The way you were screaming I thought you were dying,” he said, and squeezed Rodney’s fingers. 

“Sorry,” Rodney said.

“Don’t be,” Sheppard said. “God, don’t be sorry for bein’ okay. I know how you are in tight spaces.”

There was a crackle, and Rodney heard Sheppard’s radio crackle too. “—Please respond,” said the radio.

“This is Sheppard, do you copy?” Sheppard answered. 

“Sheppard! Acknowledged. Looks like you guys had a little geological event.” It was most likely Lorne’s voice. “Status?”

“Buried under a bunch of rocks and some dirt,” Sheppard said drily. “I have McKay here, he seems to be uninjured.”

“Unfortunately we don’t have any beaming technology in range,” Lorne said. “The _Daedalus_ won’t be back for some days. So we’re assembling combat engineers. You say you’re uninjured?”

“Eh,” Sheppard said, “McKay just has some bruises and scrapes. He’s bein’ a trooper.”

“And you, Colonel?” Lorne asked. 

“Not so good,” Sheppard admitted. 

“What?” Rodney yelped, though he had the sense not to key his radio. 

“Ah,” Sheppard said, “I got a bit smushed. Don’t think I’ve broken any limbs but there’s some internal bleeding, feels like.”

“Why didn’t you say something?” Rodney demanded. 

“How’s me tellin’ you that gonna help you handle a panic attack?” Sheppard answered Rodney, off-radio. 

“We’ve got help on the way,” Lorne said, “and Zelenka’s getting the jumper’s sensors configured for your transmitters now, so it won’t be long. I’ll get the medical team on standby.”

“Roger that,” Sheppard said. “We’ll sit tight.”

Rodney made himself let go of Sheppard’s hand and pulled back a little, carefully feeling at the various chunks of rock to see if any were loose enough to move without bringing bigger ones down. He dug a couple out of the way, cursing absently as the grit tore up his fingers, but there was no help for it. It only gained him a few inches, but it opened a slightly wider opening and he could see Sheppard’s face now. He wriggled back in and took Sheppard’s hand back between both of his. 

“How bad is it?” he asked. 

“It’s fine,” Sheppard said, but he was lying completely motionless, face white in the reflected flashlight. “Just, you know.” He looked pained. 

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Rodney asked again, quieter, reaching in until he could touch Sheppard’s cheekbone with the backs of his fingers. 

“I figured talkin’ you out of panicking might keep me from panicking,” Sheppard said. He let his eyes close, breathing shallowly. 

“Where are you hurt?” Rodney asked, brushing his fingers over Sheppard’s face, pushing his hair back. He was clammy, sweating, face tight with pain. 

Sheppard shook his head slightly. “Kinda,” he said, “left side, ish.” 

“Is it bad?” Rodney asked, careful to keep his voice as calm as he could. 

“Hard to say,” Sheppard said, eyes still closed. “I can feel my fingers and toes, and wiggle them, so that’s good, but I’m startin’ to, y’know. Not feel so good.”

“Can you breathe?” Rodney asked, unable to keep a little spike of panic out of his voice. 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, “well enough.”

“You’re freezing,” Rodney pointed out, holding his fingers against Sheppard’s cheek. 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Shock or blood loss or both. Not… not so great.”

“Already?” They’d only been down here a matter of minutes. 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. “Doesn’t take long.”

“You can’t,” Rodney said, suddenly desperate, and he clutched at Sheppard’s hand with both of his. “You can’t die, Sheppard. You can’t. Not— I only just got back from Beckett’s funeral, I can’t, I can’t lose you too.” 

“Aw,” Sheppard said awkwardly, opening his eyes, “Rodney, don’t— hey.” He never knew what to do when Rodney cried, but at least he wasn’t mocking him. “It’s all right. They’ll get here in time.”

“You have to hang on,” Rodney said. “Don’t go into shock. Don’t die. Don’t do this to me.”

“I’ll try not to wreck your day like that,” Sheppard said, lips twisting in amusement. 

“It would wreck more than my day,” Rodney said, dredging deep to find the emotional fortitude to come up with a good rant for Sheppard’s amusement, instead of sitting and crying over him. “Do you know how miserable it was to visit his family? The way his mother, and his hundred thousand relatives, and everyone in his small town, all wanted me to talk about it, to talk about him— it was awful, Sheppard, I couldn’t do that again.”

“No worries,” Sheppard said. “I don’t have a family. All you’d have to do is e-mail an obituary to the hometown newspaper. You wouldn’t even have to go through the ‘gate.” 

“You really don’t have any family?” Rodney asked. He’d just sort of assumed Sheppard had one he wasn’t on good terms with. “What, were you grown in a lab?”

Sheppard smiled and shook his head a tiny bit. “No,” he said, “believe it or not, I came out of a human woman at one point, but she’s been dead since I was a kid and there’s nobody else I’ve spoken to in at least a decade.” 

“Is your dad alive?” Rodney asked. “Or were you an immaculate conception?”

Sheppard snorted at that, then looked pained. “That was mean,” he said mournfully. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“Sorry,” Rodney said. 

“I have, or had, a father, at least technically,” Sheppard said. “But he disowned me a while back, so I figured he doesn’t really need updates on my condition real often. I guess you could send him a copy of the obituary.”

“People still get disowned?” Rodney asked. “That’s still a thing?”

“I dunno,” Sheppard said. “Dad was always kind of old-fashioned. Has a lot of money, y’know? Money makes people conservative.”

“Really,” Rodney said. “I definitely had you confused with somebody because I swear you told me about growin’ up poor.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said, “that wasn’t me. Dad owns a, I dunno, a collection of utilities companies at this point. He’s pretty up there in the money stakes. I was raised by a nanny, went to boarding school, rode horses, the whole nine yards.”

“Really,” Rodney said. 

“Oh yeah,” Sheppard said, making an abortive attempt at a nod and breaking off, face tight. 

“And you were an only child?” Rodney asked, fascinated. 

“No,” Sheppard said. “I have a brother. Couple years older. Does whatever Dad says, stopped speaking to me when Dad did, and all.” Sheppard was doing that thing with his face where he was trying to breathe through pain, and it was terribly distracting.

“If I could make peace with _my_ sister,” Rodney began.

“Don’t even,” Sheppard interrupted. “It’s not the same thing at all. We weren’t close, we were never close.” He closed his eyes. “I don’t need anything from them and they don’t want anything from me.”

“Be that as it may,” Rodney said, “I’m all out of eulogy ideas. You gotta hang on a couple years more, at least.”

Sheppard nodded, a tiny gesture, silently, and Rodney could hear how shallow and rapid his breathing was getting. “Fuckin’ freezin’ in here,” Sheppard said after a few minutes. 

“You’ve gotta hang on,” Rodney said. “Come on, Sheppard.”

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. He drew breath. “Hey, so listen, there’s some things— my paperwork’s pretty up to date and all, I just—“

“Don’t talk like that,” Rodney said. “Sheppard, don’t talk like that.”

“We’ve been friends like three years,” Sheppard said. “It feels like longer than that. It’s been pretty intense, Rodney.” He opened his eyes and looked over at Rodney, looking… unnervingly, he looked afraid. 

“It has,” Rodney said, reaching over and smoothing Sheppard’s hair away from his face.

“I, you’ve been, you’ve been really good to me,” Sheppard said, “all that time.”

“Like a friend loves another friend,” Rodney said. 

Sheppard grinned, at that, and Rodney noted with horror that his lips were bluish. “Yeah,” he said. He looked down, then back up at Rodney. “Might not’ve fooled Elizabeth with that one.”

“Seeing as she’s actually watched us fuck,” Rodney said. 

“Yeah,” Sheppard said. His gaze went a little distant. “That was hot.”

“It was weird,” Rodney said, “but yeah, hot.”

Sheppard smiled almost sheepishly, and looked away again. “So um,” he said, face tightening again, “you know we’re good, right?”

“Yes,” Rodney said, “I do.” He slid his hand down to cradle the side of Sheppard’s face, rubbing a thumb along his cheekbone. Tears came again. “Sheppard, you’ve got to hang on.”

“Doin’ my best,” Sheppard said, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“Hurts pretty bad?” Rodney asked, not even trying to keep the tears from running down his face. 

“Eh,” Sheppard said, “yeah. Pretty bad.” 

“It can’t take them much longer to get here,” Rodney said. 

“Mm,” Sheppard answered absently. He’d left his eyes shut this time. “Hey Rodney,” he said in a moment, and his voice was really quiet. 

“Yes,” Rodney answered. 

“There’s somethin’ that’s really been buggin’ me,” Sheppard said. “For, for _years_ now.”

“What?” Rodney asked, nervous. 

“No matter how close we got, you and me,” Sheppard said, and he was really laboring for breath by now. “No matter what happened… God, even when you were _coming_ , Rodney… You never, you never—“ He stopped to breathe. “You never called me by my name.”

“What?” Rodney blinked in startlement. “I call you by your name all the time! I just did, like a minute ago!”

Sheppard rolled his head a little, tilting his head back— he was visibly having trouble breathing, and Rodney could see the blood running from the lower corner of his mouth, and that was bad, it was really really bad. 

“My name,” Sheppard managed, eyes open now, looking right at him, “is _John_.”

 

 

 

 


	2. A Delicate And Tricky Business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The care and feeding of injured Sheppards is a delicate and tricky business.
> 
> Introducing a new major character. In canon, they shoehorn her in later, but really, this is where she ought to show up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapters are running really short-- sorry!-- but that so far seems to be the only complicated bit of the crossing-over situation. If I don't properly intersperse things it'll get fuuuuuubar.  
> However, at this point, the other side of the story is more affected.  
> I haven't actually made more work for myself, just slightly increased the complexity of the work I've made.

 

 

 

Rodney had expected Dr. Cole to take over from Dr. Beckett, but she was still in her old spot on the night rotation. Instead, another one of the doctors who’d been hanging around was promoted instead. He’d noticed her before— she was like a slightly shorter, cuter, even younger Dr. Cole, blonde and impossibly young and perky— but he wasn’t at all sure that she was old enough to be here, let alone old enough to be operating on Sh— John. 

She looked a little tired, but relatively calm as she stepped out to where Rodney was sitting with Ronon. Teyla was offworld, and did not yet know that John was injured. “Dr. McKay,” she said. “Colonel Sheppard’s file informs me that you’re his medical proxy.”

“Yes,” Rodney said. “Oh God! What is it?”

She looked alarmed for a moment. “What? Oh, no, all that means is that I can discuss his condition in detail with you,” she said. “We don’t need to have any hard conversations. He’ll be fine. It’s just… going to be a little while.”

“Oh,” Rodney said. He sat back down. 

“He was lucky,” Baby Doctor said (Kelly? Jessica?), “and while his injuries were serious, neither of his kidneys was badly damaged. A broken rib punctured his chest wall, and he was suffering from a hemopneurothorax, meaning that the compromised lung could not inflate because of blood in the pleural space. He also suffered some damage to a few other organs, primarily his spleen. He lost a lot of blood but we were able to save most of his spleen, and repair the other damage. I’m reasonably confident he won’t need any follow-up surgery, though it will take quite a little while for the fractured ribs to knit, and a bit for all the soft-tissue damage to heal up.”

“But he’ll be okay,” Rodney said. 

“Oh,” Kelly said, “absolutely. If he’d bled any longer or gotten much more hypoxic, we’d’ve been in some trouble, but as it is, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any irreversible organ or tissue damage. He’ll be back on active duty in a couple of months at most.”

“Good,” Ronon said, “I understood that part.”

Kelly smiled at him. “I have to say, I kind of felt reassured that he was such an old hand at this,” she said. “He already had so many incision scars I was pretty much able to hide all the new ones in the old ones. He’s a tough old bird, isn’t he? And he has really good oxygenation and blood chemistry. I wish all my patients were that easy. Someone else might really have been in trouble with that level of damage, but I never really even came close to losin’ him.”

“He _is_ pretty old,” Ronon agreed traitorously. Rodney felt sort of faintly horrified to consider John’s physical components like that.

“Hey,” he said, catching Ronon’s comment a little too late. Rodney was older than John.

“His insides are pretty well-rummaged,” Kelly said. “And I noticed the note about the antibiotic allergy, so I was careful to avoid anything from the penicillin family.” She looked sad for a moment. “His file was very tidily managed.”

By Beckett, Rodney understood, and grief stabbed him too. 

“Thanks, Dr. Keller,” Ronon said. Oh. Not Kelly. Right. Good thing Rodney hadn’t spoken first. 

“Yes, thank you, Doctor,” Rodney said. “He, um, how long do you think he’ll be out?”

“Hours yet,” Keller said. “Though I did see the note in his file that he tends to wake up fast from anaesthesia. I didn’t quite understand the accompanying note about sedatives.”

“Use them as little as possible,” Rodney said. “He comes out of sedation quickly, and it tends to make him panic.”

“That could be problematic,” Keller said. 

“It helps if people he knows very well are there when he wakes,” Rodney said. “Ronon and I will trade off.” He looked over at Ronon, who nodded. By the end, despite some rocky in-betweens, John had mostly trusted Beckett. He wouldn’t trust this new person. One or two of the nurses were familiar to him, but no more than that. He didn’t trust easily.

The reason he usually woke in a panic was PTSD-related, though, and Rodney wondered if the machine he’d made would help. 

“It’s just that,” Keller said, screwing her face up thoughtfully (and she was very, very cute), “I know I said very optimistic things about his recovery, and they weren’t exaggerated, but he is very delicate currently. He really can’t thrash around at all.”

Rodney nodded. “Carson eventually learned to use one of the Ancient handheld medical devices to measure his brainwaves and figure out when he was close to consciousness.” 

“Ohhhh,” Keller said. “ _That_ was what he was talking about. One of the notes in his file was basically incomprehensible, just a diagram of that machine rigged up with an IV stand. I get it. Yes. So we should use that to make sure he stays under until we’re ready to deal with him.”

“Yes,” Rodney said.

In the meantime, he was going to go talk to Heightmeyer. 

 

 

 

Sh— _John_ — was still unconscious when he got back, though he was breathing on his own now. The nurse John respected most, Marie Ko, was standing at his bedside, paging through the readings on the computer hooked up to him. She glanced over at him and nodded; she’d spelled his team at vigils before. 

“Is Dr. Keller twelve?” Rodney asked, by way of greeting. 

Marie smiled fleetingly; she was not given to displays of humor. “They get younger every year,” she said, “but us, we stay the same age.” She paged through something on the display, then pointed with her finger at a chart. “He’s on his way up,” she said. “Starting to show some activity. Which is freakish, but of course, for him, normal.”

Rodney nodded. He pulled the little machine out of his pocket. “This is something I’ve been working on with Heightmeyer,” he said. “It’s designed to monitor someone’s brainwaves and detect the onset of nightmares or PTSD episodes. John had been using it for a while to prevent nightmares. I consulted with Kate and she said it was likely to help prevent him from waking up in a panic.”

“That would be good,” Marie said. “He’s held together with glue and spit, as far as I can tell. Dr. Keller has a very, very delicate hand, and while I’m sure her repairs will hold, they don’t look nearly as sturdy as I’m accustomed to the Colonel requiring.”

“He’s rough on his toys,” Rodney said, then hesitated. “Okay, and in this case I mean _his lungs_ by that, and that’s definitely weird.”

Marie actually laughed at that, just a brief one but it totally counted. “So how do you use this machine?”

“It just has to be near him,” Rodney said. “And on, which is accomplished by him touching it.” He moved to Sh— John’s bedside, and looked at him for a moment. 

He looked so small like this, and so frail. Rodney ought to have been used to that, but Sheppard’s size was deceptive— standing and moving, he looked like a big man, but up close, especially if he was off his feet, it was obvious how slender he was, how narrow-built and spare. When they were in bed together, when he was little spoon to Rodney’s big spoon, he felt so small. It was easy to forget that, when he was up and moving and running around killing things. 

His hands were lying down by his sides. The left had the monitor clipped to it, and IVs in the elbow, and generally was less accessible. So Rodney took his right hand gently by the wrist and turned it a little so the palm faced more upward. He put the little machine into John’s hand for a moment, curling his fingers around it. 

“I saw that,” Marie said, looking at the monitor. “It changed his brainwave pattern. Not a lot, but,” and she selected the relevant chart, paged back a moment, showed the spot where the wave slightly, but distinctly, changed form. 

“Good,” Rodney said, and slipped the machine into the pocket of John’s scrub shirt. He let himself touch John’s hand again, though, warming the cold skin between his hands. 

“That’s an aggressively even wave pattern,” Marie observed. 

“You think it’s a problem?” Rodney asked, watching it unspool on the monitor. 

“No,” she said, “it’s— hmm, I think it’s moving him into REM sleep, actually.” She pointed at the chart as the wave pattern began to change, becoming less regular. 

“So it does make him dream,” Rodney said, fascinated. “He said as much. I wish we could see what he was dreaming about.”

Marie gave him a look. “Doctor,” she said, “you of all people know this isn’t science fiction. There would be no way to translate a dream into a visual representation other people could see.”

“No,” Rodney said, considering it. “You’re right.”

“Well,” she said, looking at the chart. “If there was a way, you’d’ve found it by now.”

Rodney couldn’t help but preen a little, at that. 

 

Marie went on with her rounds, and Rodney pulled up a stool and sat watching John’s brainwaves, sometimes looking over at John’s face. The brainwave pattern kept up, normal and even; Rodney could see his eyes moving a little, under his lids, and he no longer looked so slackly, almost deathly, unconscious. 

There was adhesive residue on his face, though, from having his eyes taped shut during surgery. Rodney went and got alcohol wipes and very carefully cleaned it. He’d woken with sticky eyelids before, and it was unpleasant, especially if you were too weak to do anything about it yourself. 

There was a little beep from one of the monitors, and Rodney turned to look. He didn’t know what all the numbers meant, though, so he turned back to John. John had one eye partly open. 

“John?” Rodney said. 

John closed the eye, then opened both, face drawing tight. “Hey,” he whispered, voice wrecked. 

“Did I get all the glue off?” Rodney asked. 

John drew breath hesitantly. “Ow,” he whispered. 

“Dr. Keller says you’re gonna be fine but you have to not move,” Rodney said. 

John squinted at him, and Rodney could see where he’d missed a spot in the crease of the left eyelid, so he went back to work with the alcohol swab. “Ow,” John said faintly, again, but didn’t struggle. 

“Sorry,” Rodney said. “They had your eyes taped shut, you were in surgery a while.”

“Figured,” John said. His breathing was still labored. He squinted one eye open and struggled to focus on Rodney. “Did they take anything out wh— while they were rummaging?”

“Part of your spleen, I think, but not the whole thing,” Rodney said. “I already looked it up, that’s okay, you can do without part. But if they took the whole thing you’d be prone to infections and more susceptible to hypovolemic shock which given your lifestyle is in fact a potential problem.”

“I know,” John whispered. 

“Why do you know that?” Rodney asked. 

“Almost lost it one other time too,” John said. “So I read the thing.” He got both eyes open for a moment, but then they sank shut again. Rodney let himself take John’s hand again and hold it. He looked so fragile and battered, it made something inside Rodney’s chest twist cruelly.

“Are you cold?” he asked. John’s hand was still freezing. “I could get you another blanket.”

John pried an eyelid up again. They weren’t sticky, he was just barely conscious, and it looked like it hurt him to breathe. “Machine,” he said, “did you— is it—“ 

“This one?” Rodney reached into the breast pocket of his scrubs and pulled it out, holding it where John could see. “I kinda— Keller said if you thrashed around you might pop stitches and you’d be in trouble so I figured, it was important to keep you from waking up as agitated as you usually do. I’m sorry, I know—“ He paused, seeing that John was shaking his head very slightly. 

“’Sok, Rodney,” John said. His eyes closed again, and he breathed, in and out, shallow and pained. “I saw th’other universe though. ’Sn’t just a dream machine. ’S real.”

“There shouldn’t be any connection,” Rodney said. “I shut that part down. I’m quite sure it’s isolated.”

“Dunno,” John said, “but I spoke to ‘m, ‘e’s initialized s’th’ng on th’ other side.”

“Who?” Rodney asked. 

John pried his eyes open. “Me,” he said. 

“What?” Rodney was lost, now. 

“Other me,” John said patiently, enunciating as clearly as he could at a whisper. “I saw other me, Rodney. I talked to’m.”

“You shouldn’t be speaking yet, Colonel,” Keller said, startling Rodney. “Your prognosis is very good but your condition is precarious.”

“Sorry,” Rodney said. John’s eyes crossed, sank shut, but opened again, stubbornly. 

“Who’re you,” he managed, sort of looking at Keller with the one eye that was focusing. 

“Colonel,” she said, “you’re barely conscious and it must be excruciating to breathe, and you’re still talking? I guess they were right about you. I’m Dr. Keller, I’m filling in as Chief Medical Officer.”

“Oh,” John said, and passed out. 

“He’s always like that,” Rodney said. “Beckett was always pretty careful to expressly forbid things, because John’s always willing to try them way before any sensible person would even think they were possible. I’m sorry, it didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t.”

“Okay,” she said, but she looked amused. “Well, no skateboarding, no steak dinners, no parasailing, and absolutely no rock climbing until further notice.”

“But sushi and karaoke is fine?” Rodney shot back. 

“I didn’t think there was anywhere around here to do those things,” Keller said. 

“M47-2A4 has sushi,” Rodney said, “or damn close to it, and some of the Marines have some pretty serious DJ equipment. Don’t write anything off.” He was still holding John’s hand. “You’re not just saying he’ll be all right?”

“I’m not just saying it,” she said, her smile softening. “He really does have to take it easy for at least three or four days, and I mean easy— no attempts to sit up, no talking or coughing, no sudden movements. But I’ll be watching him closely, and once he starts healing he should be out of the woods. And I’m serious, the surgery was really good— his heart didn’t even come close to stopping, not once. I’ve read his chart, he’s had way worse.”

“I know he has,” Rodney said. John’s eyes weren’t quite closed all the way— sometimes they weren’t, when he passed out, whether unconscious or asleep (and _that_ was _incredibly_ creepy)— and he just looked flattened, like he’d been hit by a bus. Rodney hated it when John looked like that. 

“Actually he’s in astonishingly good shape for how much damage he’s taken over the years,” Keller mused. “I got to reading his chart and there was some whole deal with his shoulder that abruptly cleared itself up and hasn’t been an issue since. And that’s not the only thing. Some of his physiology… it’s like he’s a much younger man on the inside than his listed age would suggest.”

“Really,” Rodney said. “I know he got worked on with a Gou’auld healing device, you think maybe that would do it?”

“I haven’t studied those,” Keller said. “Maybe.” She shrugged. “At any rate, he’s a pretty lucky guy.”

John cracked one eye open further. “Don’t jinx me,” he whispered. 

“Don’t talk,” she answered, with a laugh. “I’ll knock on wood for you, don’t worry.” 

“But he’ll be fine,” Rodney persisted. 

“Completely,” Keller said. “There might be a slight diminishment of lung capacity on the one side, depending how the scar tissue heals up, but there shouldn’t be any persisting pain or real loss of function at all. That’s the only thing that’ll be tricky to rehab at all. The rest is just… rest until it can take the strain, then PT until it’s back to about how it was. Given his track record, that’ll be no time at all. He just really, really has to rest.”

“Okay,” Rodney said.

“I’m just gonna check a couple of things,” she said, and Rodney moved his stool back a little, getting out of the way. She investigated various of the drainage tubes coming out from under the blankets, and when John came around again, she slid a stethoscope up under his shirt and made him breathe for her. 

It obviously hurt him, though he made no sound; Rodney was just very experienced, by now, at reading the line of his jaw, the pinch at the corners of his eyes, the way his mouth shaped itself around pain. Keller was gentle and professional about it, mercifully brief, and smoothed her hand across his forehead as she pulled the stethoscope away. 

“You’re okay,” she murmured. “Now rest.”

Rodney followed her as she walked away, and said, “He’s in a lot of pain.”

“Did he say that?” she asked, shooting Rodney a glance as she moved toward the medication locker. 

“No,” Rodney said, “I just— I’m used to— I know how he looks.”

She smiled, unlocking the cabinet. “A lot of that body language is universal,” she said, “so yes, I am aware. We have a pain management plan for him, Dr. McKay, and I’m starting it now.”

“Just don’t knock him out,” Rodney persisted, a little self-conscious under her indulgent regard. 

She nodded. “I know,” she said. “It’s all right, Dr. McKay. I know I’m not Carson, but I understand that the care and feeding of injured Sheppards is a delicate and tricky business.”

Rodney lifted his chin defensively. “It’s his team’s job to make sure,” he said. 

She smiled, and there didn’t seem to be any mockery in it. “I’m glad he has you,” she said. 

 


	3. Kind Of Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm still here.   
> John's not really here.   
> Rodney's somewhere else.   
> Shortish chapter, because it's taken me far too long to bang this out and I don't want to sit on it any longer.
> 
> Extreme pining.

John was in a featureless white room with a possibly younger version of himself who was surely from an alternate universe when something started tugging him back to consciousness. He went grudgingly— he still hadn’t come up with a way to be sure it wasn’t just a dream, and he knew Rodney was going to want proof. He’d given his other self plenty, though— if it wasn’t a dream, that universe was about to have some pretty major breakthroughs. 

Oh, it was pain that was pulling him back— whatever painkillers he’d been on, they were wearing off. It hurt like a knife in his chest to breathe. The white room had faded away to the blackness of the insides of his eyelids, and he started gathering the strength to lift an eyelid and see if there was anyone he could summon to try and knock the pain down a little bit. There was a time to be stoic, but shortly after a lung collapse was not that time. 

As he woke his ears came back online and started processing the sounds around him. A rhythmically beeping machine somewhere distant suggested the infirmary; someone coughed down the hall, and voices rose and fell in distant murmurs. And something, closer, was making tiny sounds, as familiar as John’s own heartbeat— typing, distinctively Rodney typing, on a laptop keyboard. John would have smiled, if his face had been working yet, but it wasn’t really. 

“Hey,” Rodney said, sounding pleased. John’s face must have moved enough for him to notice it. John tried again to drag an eyelid up, warmth pushing the pain back a little. 

“Hey yourself,” another voice answered, a woman’s voice, close and flirty and a little shy. “I thought you might still be down here.”

“We always keep watch,” Rodney said.

“That’s really sweet,” she said, a little simpering, and it clicked into place who this was as John managed to drag an eyelid up and see an unfocused blur that included red hair: Katie Brown. 

“Well,” Rodney said, “I mean, we all do it for one another, you know?” He sounded a little self-conscious. 

“I know,” she said sweetly. “I brought you a coffee.”

“Thank you,” Rodney said, more sincerely than John had ever heard him say anything. 

“Well,” she said, with a little nervous-sounding laugh. “You’re still managing to put in more work than any of us, even from here.”

“I am,” Rodney said, “aren’t I.” If he were awake, John would have had to hide a fond smile at that, but right now he was not awake, he was not going to open his eyes. He did not want to be in this conversation. He was not part of this. And he was not going to let this woman he didn’t really know see him weak and in pain like this. 

John focused his attention inward, trying to breathe through the knife-sharp pain of his left lung. God, his whole chest and side was all a deep, sick ache, ugly and agonizing. He was definitely awake now, definitely not foggy anymore. Katie Brown was laughing quietly, a soft sweet noise, and Rodney said something else, some bit of gossip from the science department. 

“He’s kind of a tool,” Katie agreed quietly, as if confiding a great secret, and actually giggled. 

“Yes, but at least he understands the concept of significant figures,” Rodney said, “unlike Gopala.”

“Gopala’s nice, though,” Katie said. 

“Yes,” Rodney answered drily, “but nice won’t keep your city from blowing up.” John’s breath caught a little in amusement, which hurt, _Christ_ it hurt, Jesus Mary and _Joseph_ it _fucking hurt_ and breathing through it was _not_ working. 

Katie was laughing again, and John focused on keeping his breathing as shallow and silent as he could. _God, please, just, just_ go _, go with her, go somewhere with her,_ he thought desperately. But of course, she seemed to be settling in to keep Rodney company. 

Fuck. 

John wasn’t what anyone would term a good actor. He had a reasonable poker face, sometimes, when the situation warranted. But he wasn’t really the type who could pull off a whole conversation, or anything like that. Pretending to regain consciousness now, well— he knew he hurt too much to speak intelligibly, to so much as utter a greeting in a reasonable tone. He really didn’t want her to see him like this. He really—

Oh. He really wanted Rodney to himself. 

Well. That was stupid. And not helpful. And Jesus Christ he hurt so bad. It hurt. John considered holding his breath until he passed out, but he knew it wouldn’t work. And they were sitting there talking about something some other scientist had said at lunch— at lunch that they’d had together— oh. Oh, _oh_ , it hurt. 

Maybe this was another alternate universe, John thought with a wash of dark humor as he struggled to breathe, cold sweat prickling along his hairline, down his neck. The universe where he was a goddamned coward. He thought of something to ask his other self, who was apparently in a happy, loving, committed, unsettlingly normal relationship with other-Rodney: how the hell did you convince yourself you were enough for him? 

But that one wasn’t going to convince anybody in this universe that the dreams he was having were anything but dreams. He needed to do better. He needed, Christ, he needed a goddamn nurse, he needed Katie to stop fucking giggling, he needed Rodney not to sound so goddamn fucking puffed-up and— well, happy. Rodney sounded happy. 

Fuck. 

He couldn’t exactly wish for Rodney to stop sounding happy. Possibly the worst part was the tiny little bit of him that kept reacting to Rodney’s happy tone like it was meant for him. That bit didn’t listen to words, just tone, and it really liked that tone, even when Rodney was being happy because he was also being a dick to somebody. It had been a problem before. 

“Is he— oh,” another voice said, a female voice. 

“Hm?” Rodney’s voice answered her. 

“Nothing,” the other voice said. “It just, the monitor back at my station, I thought he was—“

“Oh,” Rodney said, intent, and his voice was closer.

John set his jaw and tried to open his eyes— now or never— but failed, only managing to screw up his face. “John,” Rodney said quietly, “how long have you been awake?”

“He’s really overdue for his medicine,” the other female voice said, and John remembered her now, she was that young doctor he didn’t really know. “So if he is awake, he’s gotta be hurting pretty bad. Colonel Sheppard?”

“Nng,” John managed tightly, finally peeling an eyelid back. Flash of blonde, familiar out-of-focus planes of Rodney-face beyond that. It was a pathetic noise, just as pathetic as he’d worried it would be. 

The doctor stepped closer, and thank God, was smoothly sliding something into his IV. It hit him in a second, a cool rush of blessed relief, and he gasped out an inadvertent, embarrassing whimper. “Pulse rate’s a little elevated,” she said quietly, looking at the monitor. “Been climbing a little while.”

“Thank you,” John squeaked pitifully at her, and it was still too soon for breathing not to hurt but he was trying anyway. 

“Hey,” Rodney was saying, “Katie, thanks for the coffee, that was really sweet of you. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow?”

John’s muscles let go, and his eyes finally, gratefully rolled open. He blinked up at the doctor and Rodney, feeling floaty and distant and really, really sad. “I want you to keep that heart-rate down,” the doctor said. “They warned me you might try to tough things out but I didn’t think you’d be in any state to even consider it. I don’t want you doing that, Colonel. It’ll slow your healing. There’s been a lot of research recently to prove that pain is detrimental to healing, and there’s no merit at this point to being a tough guy.”

“Uh-huh,” John said vaguely, staring at Rodney now, only Rodney, who sat at his bedside out of duty and that had to mean something, had to mean something good, even if John wasn’t a pretty girl. 

“I mean it,” the doctor said. 

“You could pretty much be saying anything right now,” Rodney said, mouth pulling sideways with what might have been fond humor. Or resignation, maybe. 

“Yeah,” John said. 

“John doesn’t really… process conversations that well,” Rodney said, “when he’s on this stuff.”

“I got sawed in half,” John said, which wasn’t really what he meant to say, he’d been thinking to say something about his injury but the proper words kept slipping away. “Like a magic trick,” he concluded wistfully, following up the statement rather than his original intended meaning. 

“That’s not how the magic trick works, though,” the doctor said, amused, but not unkind. 

“Rodney’s a pretty,” John said, then stopped, frowning; that wasn’t at all what he’d meant to say. “A pretty, a good—“ He stopped again, more frustrated. It wasn’t coming out at all. He wanted to say something about Rodney’s pretty girlfriend. It wouldn’t come out. 

“Rodney is a good friend,” the doctor said, and patted his face lightly in a move that might have pissed him off if he weren’t high as hell. 

“And John is high as fuck,” Rodney said, amused, taking the doctor’s place right next to the bed. 

“Yeah,” John said, looking up at him. He _was_ pretty, was the thing; not so most people would notice, especially as he was usually so busy being a spiky jerk, but he really was pretty, and had become an important part of John’s daily landscape and a crucial component to John’s sense of home. 

John remembered that he had hands sometime after he started trying to move them, and only really realized what he’d been semiconsciously trying to do when Rodney caught one of his hands between two of his, and held it. “John,” Rodney said. 

“You,” John said, and immediately forgot whatever else he wanted to say, because he was so pleased that he had succeeded in taking Rodney’s hand, even if it was only because Rodney had done it for him.

“You didn’t have to wait until your almost-dying breath to ask me to use your first name,” Rodney said. “I did use it, sometimes, but it felt weird and presumptuous so I didn’t do it much.”

The phrase _felt weird and presumptuous_ floated through John’s head and only slowly dissolved into any kind of meaning. John frowned in concentration, then sadness. “Why would you think it was presuhmpashush?” he asked, completely unable to manage the consonants. That meant that Rodney didn’t think of him as _home_ in the same way, if he didn’t feel comfortable like that. And probably that was what had been bothering John about it the whole time. “Do I shut you out?” he realized, but his eyes were slightly too out of focus to make out Rodney’s expression clearly, and he figured out that was because he had them opened too wide, or maybe he had them open too wide because they wouldn’t focus. 

“Yes,” Rodney said, “you do shut me out, and I’m never sure how much of it is intentional.”

“My door is broken,” John said, but the metaphor was getting kind of floaty so he let go of it. “I’m kind of broken,” he concluded, looking dejectedly down at the expanse of what logically had to be his body, but wasn’t really anything he could currently feel much of a sense of connection to. Except his hand, which Rodney was holding, and he looked at that and it made him smile so he looked back up at Rodney. “You’re not broken,” he said. “You’re smart.” It seemed like a gift to him personally, and it was more than he’d ever deserved, and it overflowed his heart and made his eyes prickle with tears. “You’re so smart,” he said earnestly, “that you know which wall will hold in a collapse, and you’re not dead, and I’m not dead.” 

Rodney smiled back at him. “I was right,” he said, “because I _am_ smart, but unfortunately even being smart won’t let you predict which bits of the roof will come down where.”

“I got a little bit broken,” John conceded, and his awareness looped back a few moments and repeated the phrase “my door is broken,” which he said out loud, and remembered about the metaphor he’d let go, and homes, and people being homes, so he thought about it for a moment and repeated, “My door is broken.”

“You’re healing, though,” Rodney said comfortingly. 

“Don’ wanna heal with you on the wrong side,” John said, proud to have completed the metaphor, but being proud of himself gave the words kind of the wrong inflection for Rodney to get his meaning, so Rodney was just kind of blinking at him in fond indulgence and no small confusion. “You,” John said again, earnestly, “Rodney, I—“ 

“Is he making any sense?” Elizabeth asked. Had she been there before? Rodney gave her a look John couldn’t parse. 

“I don’t want Rodney on the wrong side of the door,” John said, a little urgently. 

“Well,” Elizabeth said, with that slightly nervous smile she got when she wasn’t sure what level things were on, “I should hope not. Especially not if it’s an important one.”

“It’s _my_ door,” John said, but it was clear now that nobody understood what level _he_ was on here, and the metaphor had run out of any steam it had ever had. “Broken,” he concluded sadly. 

“He’s on the mend,” Rodney said. 

“Well,” Elizabeth said, with false cheer. “That’s good, then. We can’t do without you for long, John.” Elizabeth always sucked as an infirmary visitor, but even she felt free to use his first name in some circumstances, like this, and it was goofy of Rodney not to have felt the same way. 

“See,” John said, pointing at her— his hand was free. Rodney wasn’t holding it anymore. When had that happened? More importantly, why had that happened? He looked at it a moment, then over at his other hand to make sure he wasn’t mistaken as to which hand Rodney had been holding, but his other hand was free too. 

Heartbroken, he looked up at Rodney. Of course Rodney wouldn’t hold hands with him in front of people. He himself wouldn’t normally want Rodney to. But c’mon, he was almost dead, surely it was okay now. 

Evidently Rodney didn’t think so. And he wasn’t wrong, it was definitely something John would’ve told him not to do. And that’s what all this was— John had been pushing him away and he was finally obeying. 

Oh.

“See what?” Elizabeth prompted. 

“Nothing,” John said quietly, and looked down toward where his feet ought to be, chest hurting in a way the painkillers couldn’t touch. 


End file.
